


Have Yourself a Super Merry Christmas

by doctorbuffypotterlock79



Series: We Can Be Heroes [3]
Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Lesbian AU, PTSD, Therapy, i love christmas and my powerless babies too much, mild implied smut, superhero stuff but make it christmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:53:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21647881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorbuffypotterlock79/pseuds/doctorbuffypotterlock79
Summary: Brooke and Vanessa celebrate Christmases past, present, and future--and maybe save the day a few times in between.
Relationships: Brooke Lynn Hytes/Vanessa Vanjie Mateo
Series: We Can Be Heroes [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1440832
Comments: 26
Kudos: 30





	1. Christmas Past: Before Those Hands Pulled Me From the Earth

**Author's Note:**

> I love my Powerless babies so much, and I also love Christmas, so I just had to write this! (You probably need to read Powerless and Overpowered if you're new to this series). Thank you so much to Writ for not only beta-ing, but also encouraging me to keep doing this when I almost gave it up and brainstorming ideas with me. I appreciate you endlessly. Please leave some feedback if you'd like, each comment really does encourage me!!
> 
> Chapter title from Like Real People Do by Hozier.

_It’s Christmas morning, and Brooke Lynn Hytes is six years old._

_She stares at the ceiling, one small hand holding a stuffed monkey and the other running along her purple fleece blanket. Above her head, anchored by painted ballet slippers, big pink letters on the wall spell out her name, as if she would ever forget something that important._

_Her feet kick around in excitement. She gave up on sleeping an hour ago, and she’s not sure how much longer she can possibly wait before going to see her tree sparkling, presents with bright paper and bows stashed underneath._

_Her clock reads 5:43. She usually woke up at 7:30 for school, but she doesn’t know how much longer that will take. They haven’t learned that kind of math in school yet and 7:30 might as well be hundreds of years away. She can’t wait anymore. She pulls on her bunny slippers and bolts to her parents’ room, launching into their bed like a rocket._

_There’s more than a few groans and exasperated glances at the clock before she tugs them both into the living room with her._

_The presents are piled in red and green paper, with sparkling bows that will take her forever to untie. There’s a large box to the side, and Brooke decides to save that one for last in case it’s the new big-girl bike she asked for. She shreds paper on clothes and shoes and toys and a pink music box with a small blonde ballerina inside, just like her, shouting while her parents smile from the couch. She holds her breath when she gets to the last box, opening it to reveal a light purple bike with streamers on the handlebars and she shrieks in excitement. She climbs on it and her father says she can ride it when the snow melts, and Brooke smiles all day long, even in the itchy dress she has to wear for dinner at her grandmother’s._

_She doesn’t know what’s coming. She doesn’t know that 14 years from now her parents won’t be there. She doesn’t know that 12 years after that, she’ll be pulled from the wreckage of a plane by evil people whose needles will give her powers and take this memory away from her. She doesn’t know that a year after that crash, in the high heat of summer, she’ll fall in love with a fierce, warm-hearted woman who will thaw the ice she built up around her heart, who will help her out of the darkness and give her new memories._

_But she doesn’t know this. It’s Christmas morning, and Brooke Lynn Hytes is six years old. And she is happy._

Brooke sits up in bed and has her fingers clenched around her pen before she can even fully see. Her pen flies over the notebook, writing down every detail of the memory as it swirls in her brain: her mother’s laugh, her father’s promise to teach her, the silky smoothness of the streamers flowing from the handlebars, the gentle, melodic turns of the ballerina in the music box. She can still feel the cool weight of it in her lap. She’s seen flashes of her mother before, but this is the first time she’s ever seen her father and she wants to remember his dark blond hair and brown eyes. She wishes she could hold the memory in her hands, lock it up in a box and carry her treasure of memories around with her so she never loses them. Even though there’s no lab to take them from her anymore, time is just as much a thief, and she can’t lose this one. She can’t. 

“Brooke?”

She must have woken Vanessa. It barely registers in her mind, thoughts still floating somewhere in time.

“Are you okay? You’re crying.”

She is? Her cheeks _are_ wet, she notices suddenly. When had she started?

“Was it a bad dream?”

She puts down her pen, positive she’s gotten it all--the tear of wrapping paper, the pile of it brushing against her legs. The click of the camera shutter as her mother took pictures. The way it felt like the morning would never end, like every day after would be Christmas too. 

“It-it was a good dream.” she answers finally, turning to see Vanessa’s worried eyes. Those eyes have looked at her countless times in the night, though getting fewer as the nightmares decrease. Those eyes ground Brooke when she wakes up and can’t understand where she is, mind still wholly convinced she’s in the lab, sitting on the exam table with a cold stethoscope pressed against her chest and a light shining too bright into her eyes, or pulsing with energy as her fist smashes into someone’s jaw, fulfilling her promise to the General that she wouldn’t fail because then she would be bad. Those eyes remind her that she’s not there, she’s home. Those eyes _are_ her home.

“A good dream? Did you see one of your memories?” Vanessa’s voice brims with concealed excitement. She knows how much it means to Brooke when she regains a piece of her past, and she gets just as thrilled as Brooke does. 

“Yeah. Christmas morning when I was a kid. I saw...I saw both my parents this time.” She’s aware of the tears now, falling thickly down her cheeks. Vanessa wipes them away, her fingertips replaced with lips as she kisses Brooke’s cheek softly. 

“I’m happy you got to see it,” she breathes against Brooke’s face.

“Me too.” And she is. She just wishes it was never taken away in the first place, that she could have had this moment to relive over the years. But she knows from hours with Nina that she can’t ruminate on it. All she can do is take things day by day, memory by memory. 

Vanessa’s stomach growls like thunder. “Oops. Way to spoil the moment, huh?”

Brooke smiles. “The half-dozen cookies you ate yesterday weren’t enough?”

“You know me,” Vanessa offers by way of apology. 

“I sure do,” Brooke replies, going in for another kiss. 

\---

Patrol is miserable in the cold, but things have been quiet lately, almost like the criminals of the world are giving them a holiday break. Despite the chill, it _is_ kind of pretty to be perched on the roof with red and green lights glowing below, shimmery wreaths and bows visible even from up high.The city is a large snow globe spread beneath her, filled with people she doesn’t know, all going about their lives, some struggling, some thriving, but all _living_ ; and maybe it’s her sessions with Nina or the Christmas cheer, but for once, Vanjie isn’t separated from the world below but is part of it, on the inside of the glass rather than the outside, and she’s never been happier to. 

“Anybody need ice?” Frost asks, and Scarlet groans in response. 

Vanjie refuses. She has several new bruises on her back, but when you’ve been doing this for years like she has, you just stop noticing after a while. Just another bruise to add to the collection, another ounce of pain when her shoulders have already borne tons. 

There’s a cold sensation on her back, a ball of ice pressed against it as Frost stands at her side. She nods knowingly, but doesn’t say anything, and Vanjie is grateful. It’s still strange for her to be taken care of the way Frost--Brooke--takes care of her. But a good strange. One she can’t imagine living without, even if is still hard for her to accept that care, accept that her shoulders don’t have to carry it all alone anymore. 

“Alarm went off at a toy store on 32nd,” Silk informs everyone by ear comm.

“I _told_ you my vision would be tonight!” Yvie brags. “You owe me five bucks, Vanj.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Vanjie stands up and looks around at them, the people that make up her loud, dysfunctional, cutthroat board game-playing family, a burst of affection bubbling up in her. 

“Let’s go catch a criminal.”

—-

She and Brooke drive to a mall upstate to do some shopping. They haven’t been to a mall in a while, since their first attempt didn’t go very well. Being somewhere so big, with blinding white tile, had reminded Brooke of the lab, but she said all the people and the noise--which weren’t allowed at the lab--made her think something bad would happen. She had insisted they stay, but her scrunched-up shoulders and the way she jumped when there was a loud noise made Vanessa’s heart hurt and they left after a few stores. 

But Brooke is confident today, growing to feel safe in unfamiliar locations. Nina says it’s good for Brooke to explore new places, and they go to new coffee shops and restaurants regularly, Vanessa ensuring Brooke is safe and calm. 

They pass a pretzel stand by the entrance and Brooke gasps. 

“Ness, did you see those pretzels? They’re huge! Can I get--” she takes a quick breath, “--I’m gonna go get one,” she says. 

Vanessa’s heart swells with pride. With Nina’s help, Brooke’s gotten better at being more assertive, at saying things she wants to do instead of asking permission or deferring to someone else. Not to mention that standing in line and ordering for herself are also big accomplishments, and Vanessa can’t help but marvel at how far she’s come. 

“Okay, baby.”

She stands off to the side, knowing not to go too far, and Brooke returns with her hands full of pretzels bigger than her head and a smile like the sun on her face. 

“One is plain, and one has garlic and Parmesan, and one has pepperoni, and one has cinnamon sugar! I couldn’t pick so I got them all.” she blushes.

There are moments when Vanessa’s love for Brooke hits her so hard it knocks the breath right out of her, and Brooke chewing on a pretzel and holding out one for her to try is one of them.

—-

Once Brooke adjusts to all the noise and people around, the mall is… nice, actually. It’s not as scary as it was last time, her medication easing some of the fear she used to have. Vanessa shares pretzels with her and says they can have lunch at a diner in the mall if they want, and Brooke can’t stop looking at Vanessa and smiling, Vanessa smiling back at her. 

They pick out ugly Christmas sweaters to wear on Christmas Eve and get presents for everyone, and Brooke is calm. 

They’re walking past a store with watches and jewelry when she sees it in the window. 

A light pink music box, with the cover open to reveal a blonde ballerina twirling gracefully. She stops in her tracks, eyes glued to the box, the movement of the ballerina hypnotic, spinning thoughts into her head. 

After the bike (which, though she doesn’t remember, she learned to ride with only one scrape on her leg), the music box had been her favorite present. Has she watched it like this before? The idea pops into her mind that she would watch it spin when she was lost in thought or worried about school, that the repetitive motions calmed her. 

A few seconds later the dull early signs of a headache poke out behind her eyes, and she blinks furiously. 

White floors and white walls. The la--no, she’s not there. She’s never going back there again. It’s the mall.

Warmth on her hand. 

Vanessa. 

She looks to her side and breathes, Vanessa silently asking if she’s okay. 

“I’m good,” Brooke replies. “I-this was in my dream the other night. I’m okay.”

Vanessa nods. “What do you say about some lunch?”

—-

“This whole page is just milkshakes?” Brooke brandishes the menu at Vanessa in wonder. 

“Yep.” Vanessa grins. “You wanna get one to share? You can pick if you want.”

She’s gotten better at it, (she still laughs when she thinks of the time she couldn’t pick what she wanted from a Chinese restaurant and Vanessa ordered so much food they ate leftovers for a week) but making decisions still cuts at her stomach. There simply weren’t any decisions _to_ make at the lab. She did what they told her, and that was that. It’s dizzying to have so many options now, to see so many things she didn’t know she was _allowed_ to want, though sometimes it gives her an indescribable fear that she’s choosing the wrong thing. 

_Remember to breathe when you’re deciding something_ , Nina’s voice reminds her. 

Air floods her lungs. She looks up at Vanessa, who is undoubtedly the best choice she’s ever made. “Um. There’s one with peanut butter and chocolate?”

“That sounds great, baby.” Vanessa reassures her, and Brooke’s stomach unknots itself. 

They both get a grilled cheese and French fries, and Vanessa suggests she dip the fries in the milkshake and it’s so good they have to get another order of fries. 

Brooke is wiping the whipped cream off her nose, unsure of how it even got there, when she notices Vanessa smiling at her. 

“What is it?”

“I just really love you.” Vanessa answers. 

—-

They spend the days leading up to Christmas making cookies until the kitchen looks like a train swept through it and Vanessa has to take two showers in one day after finding sprinkles down her shirt. 

They move around each other like a dance, and the hours tick by in perfect happiness as they cross cookies off their list. Sometimes they didn’t even have to talk, almost like they could read each other’s thoughts, sense their needs before they did. Vanessa hands Brooke chocolate chips before she could ask for them; Brooke gives Vanessa the biggest cookie to taste-test. Laughing in that kitchen with Brooke just might be the best part of Christmas. 

It could be Brooke’s dream still on her mind, or the holiday spirit hitting her now that tomorrow is Christmas Eve--their second one together, Vanessa thinks in wonder--but Vanessa pulls out her old photos that night, after Brooke is asleep, curled up under her weighted blanket and so adorable Vanessa has to smile. 

She rifles through years’ worth of pictures, cringing at her rat’s nest of hair and those God-awful middle school years when taking her picture should have been illegal, blinking away tears at pictures of her parents and little brother. _Miguel_. She doesn’t talk about him, doesn’t even think about him if she can help it, the pain just too much. Sometimes it’s easier to pretend she never had a brother. Even now, as she thinks of how he always passed her his pizza crusts at dinner, or the hours they spent pretending to be Batman and Robin, the wound stings like the fire was just yesterday. She gets to the picture when she was six and he was four, the two of them in front of the tree, trying to hold their new puppy still for the camera. That was the year they got Taco. She closes her eyes and lets it consume her...

_It’s Christmas morning, and Vanessa Mateo is six years old._

_Her eyes snap open and she rolls over. She doesn’t know what time it is, but if she’s awake, it’s morning, and that’s good enough for her. She sticks her head over the edge of the bunk bed, her brother sleeping below. She hurls her stuffed tiger at his face._

_“Wake up, dummy, it’s Christmas!”_

_She slides down the ladder of her bed without using the rungs, pretending she’s Batman sliding into the Batcave._

_“Do you think Santa brought our puppy?” she asks him as his feet pad behind hers on the way to their parents’ room._

_“Maybe.”_

_Their father whines for a few minutes after they both pounce, their mother shushing him and following closely behind as they race to the living room. She and Miguel each try to out-do each other on their shouting, and her mother jokes that she’ll need earplugs next Christmas as they destroy wrapping paper on toys and games and clothes and shoes, crumbling it into balls and whipping it at each other when they’re done. They’re planning the next saga to create with Miguel’s new action figures when her mother announces that there’s one more gift for them to share, and their father comes in with a big white box with holes punched in the top._

_They ease off the lid and Vanessa pulls the chocolate lab puppy out of the box and rests him on the floor, her and Miguel fighting over who gets to name it, hands petting its silky fur. Their mother is saying how they’ll have to clean up after it and train it and Vanessa doesn’t even mind as she kisses its soft head, her and Miguel still smiling in the matching outfits they had to wear for Christmas Day._

_She doesn’t know what’s coming. She doesn’t know that 20 years from now, everyone in this room will be gone. She doesn’t know that the same fire that takes them from her will leave her lying alone in the ash, body burning with flames that crackle both inside and out. She doesn’t know that less than two years after the fire takes everything, she will fall in love with a sweet, soft-hearted woman who will freeze the flames she built up around her heart, who will help her out of the darkness and give her a new family._

_But she doesn’t know this. It’s Christmas morning, and Vanessa Mateo is six years old. And she is happy._

Vanessa puts the pictures away and wipes furiously at her eyes. She shouldn’t have done this, it was just asking for the pain. But maybe it’s a good thing too, to let it all out and not keep things so buried. That’s something Nina would say, she muses with a smile. She slips down beside Brooke, who sleeps so much better now with therapy and meds helping her out. Brooke has been her anchor through the busy times at the salon and patrolling injuries and memories of her family that pop up uninvited in her mind on nights when she swears the fire is still singeing her skin and turning her breaths to ash, nights when Brooke’s cool skin drives the fire away and keeps her safe. She nestles against Brooke’s chest. Brooke suddenly stirs at the movement and lets out a sleepy mumble, pulling Vanessa closer like she senses her distress. 

She knows she _should_ talk about it, knows she is safe enough to, but no matter how good she’s gotten at letting herself be vulnerable and accept help, it’s just too raw to take it out of her head and put it into words. She can’t do it. Not tonight, at least. 

Vanessa is sure Brooke knows this, so the blonde just grips her tighter, effectively holding her together. 

When they wake up, it’s Christmas Eve. 

It’s Christmas Eve, and Brooke and Vanessa are happy.


	2. Christmas Present: No Other Version of Me I Would Rather Be Tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brooke and Vanessa's Christmas celebration is interrupted by some superhero action

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone that read and commented on part 1, I really appreciate it! I'm so happy to be back in this universe and I hope you enjoy this chapter! Please leave some feedback if you'd like! Thank you so much to Writ for beta-ing and brainstorming and also sorting all the girls into Hogwarts houses with me. You're the best. 
> 
> Chapter title from Jackie and Wilson by Hozier.  
> *This chapter does have a fire, implied PTSD/anxiety, and some mild religious content.*

Christmas Eve has always been Vanessa’s favorite day. 

It was the day she couldn’t move through the house without bumping into a cousin or aunt or person she was supposedly related to but had never seen in her life. The day she ate so much food she didn’t think she could eat dessert, but always did. The day when everyone laughed and screamed and six different conversations were shouted at one table. 

Now, it’s Christmas Eve morning and Brooke is in the kitchen and Vanessa is in bed, her body wanting to get up but her mind commanding her to stay because she shouldn’t be allowed to have fun without her family. 

It’s gotten easier over the years, the sense of loss. The feeling of wanting her mother to hug her while she cries, of wanting to call her brother and listen to him roast annoying family members, have lessened since the fire. Now, she has Brooke to hold her, A’keria to laugh with, and she tries not to feel like she’s replacing her family. She thinks of what Nina told her at her last appointment. Nina said she could still honor her family’s memories while making her own, that she doesn’t have to feel guilty for having a good time without them, that she isn’t a bad person for being alive when they aren’t. 

She’s going to do her best to listen to Nina, to let herself have fun without beating herself up for it. She jumps out of bed and crisps up French toast and Brooke piles hand-whipped cream on top, super-strength making short work of it. She can’t stop smiling, climbing into Brooke’s lap instead of her perfectly good chair, the morning dusted with the Christmas magic she always felt as a kid.

“Is it lasagna time now?” Vanessa asks. 

“Yes.” Brooke grins. 

Vanessa ties on her apron, quickly spattered with butter and parsley and other unknown substances. 

Brooke is layering the lasagna and Vanessa is wiping away sauce that she somehow managed to fling on the wall before Brooke notices. Brooke has that tiny wrinkle between her eyebrows she gets when she’s focused, her tongue sticking out a little, and it’s adorable, but also kind of sexy, and Vanessa thinks with a jolt of excitement that she might have another present for Brooke after everyone leaves tonight. 

Vanessa throws cheese at Brooke that sticks to her forehead, and Brooke splashes sauce at Vanessa’s apron, the food fight reaching its peak when Vanessa tries to throw flour but it backfires into her hair, and Brooke laughs so hard she falls on the kitchen floor, Vanessa retreating to the shower. 

“How did you get _cheese_ in the bathtub?” Brooke demands when she enters the bathroom for her shower later.

\---

_“You doin’ okay after the breakup, Nessie?” Her brother pulls her to a quiet corner of the house near the bathroom, though it won’t stay quiet very long considering the amount of cheese their lactose intolerant uncle consumed._

_“Yeah.” She punches his arm. “And don’t call me Nessie.”_

_“Real shitty of her to dump you before Christmas with no reason. And she planned that beach vacation for you next week. That’s just cold.”_

_“Do you really need to remind me?” she retorts, pulling out the napkin-wrapped cookie she’d stored in her pocket that morning. Her mother would yell if she caught her, but Vanessa needs cookies to forget how the woman in her bed last week suddenly decided she didn’t want to be there anymore, how the first and only real relationship she’s had went up in smoke for no reason._

_“This girl that started at my job is cute.” He gives her a knowing look. “I’ve been dropping hints about you.”_

_“I don’t--”_

_“She’s tall,” he tempts._

_“How tall?” Vanessa shoots back, unable to help herself, swatting her brother when he smirks._

_He shrugs. “Maybe five-seven? Taller than you, that’s for sure.” He pats the top of her head. Vanessa considers the day he outgrew her an injustice of the world._

_“Come down here and I’ll fight you like when we were kids,” she threatens, and she’s sure he’s remembering the time she clobbered him with her Nikes._

_“Okay, okay.” He holds his hands up, then pulls her against his side. “Seriously, you don’t need her ass anyway. Anyone that dumped you is an idiot. The right girl is out there for you somewhere, and she’ll get you that beach vacation you always wanted for Christmas.”_

_She hugs him tightly. Even though she was planning on having a girlfriend with her and dodging all her aunts’ questions about why she was single, things feel right. Maybe it’s because things have always felt right to her on Christmas, like all the world’s problems could be solved with a snowflake sugar cookie and a sparkly bow. She’s not a kid anymore, but it still feels like the ribbons and wrapping paper and shouting relatives are patching the hole in her heart, making her forget all about the asshole that dumped her._

_Can she feel her body hurtling toward that night, less than a year away? Can she feel the ash clinging to her skin as her world comes down around her? The emptiness when she looks around for someone to help her, to tell her where her family is, only to meet silence and smoky air? The loneliness of having no one, no mom or dad or brother or nosy aunt to talk to or hug her?_

_She can’t, and Vanessa Mateo eats cookies a happy woman._

\---

“Brooke?” Vanessa asks nervously after breakfast. 

“Yeah?”

“My f--we always went to church on Christmas Eve, and I haven’t been since...you know, and I kinda want to, but I don’t know if I can do it alone.”

 _It’s okay to ask for help_ , Nina always says, and maybe she couldn’t ask directly, but this is close enough, and from Brooke’s kind eyes, she gets the hint. 

“Of course I’ll go with you,” Brooke says. “I’ll be there the whole time.”

They slide into the pew later that afternoon, sunset throwing bright colors from the stained glass windows all over the church. Vanessa is restless, hand flying to the snowflake necklace Brooke got her, hoping to steady herself. Church had been boring as a kid, and she and her brother had secret thumb wars in the pew. Now, she clamps her hand on Brooke’s knee to gain control of the emotions whirling inside her like a winter wind, moving too fast to settle on one. 

In a perfect world, her family would be here, and they’d all love Brooke. But it also occurs to her that if her parents _were_ here, Brooke wouldn’t be, because Vanessa wouldn’t have her powers without the fire. She’d just be normal Vanessa, joking with her family, not knowing Brooke existed, unaware she was missing the happiness Brooke brings her. She wouldn’t change her life with Brooke for anything, but did she have to suffer so much to get it? She’s grateful for Brooke always, but is she supposed to be _grateful_ for all she went through? She knows from Nina that she doesn’t need to justify her trauma, and she isn’t going to.

Vanessa cranes her neck up at the painted ceiling, angels dancing in a soft blue sky. _I found her, Miguel_ , she thinks. _The right girl. I found her, and I love her. And she’s tall, too, you jerk._ She manages a smile through her thin line of tears. Brooke’s thumb wipes them gently, and then her arm nestles around Vanessa’s shoulders, pulling her close and whispering soft comforts. 

Vanessa sings the songs in her head, and she knows her family is singing with her. 

\---

They set up the dining room with their fancy plates decorated with reindeer and polar bears. Vanessa pulls on her blue Frosty the Snowman sweater with snowflakes on the sleeves and Brooke wears her green one with a sloth eating cookies on the front. 

“Why are we wearing scarves in the house?” Brooke questions as Vanessa wraps the bright yellow Hufflepuff scarf around Brooke’s neck. 

“Because Yvie wanted to do it and I’m not about to argue with the bitch,” Vanessa answers, grabbing her own Gryffindor scarf. 

“Fair enough. I feel like Yvie is the one of us actually capable of murder.” Brooke shrugs. 

“True, but Silk is out for blood in bingo this year. She’s still pissed Scarlet beat her last time.”

“Merry Christmas.” Brooke bends down to kiss her, and Vanessa doesn’t have to remind herself to be happy, because she already is. 

\---

Brooke doesn’t have many memories to go on, but she’s positive Christmas Eve is one of her favorite days. 

She replays that memory of herself at six years old constantly, speechless with joy that she has it to look back on. It makes her feel cozy, like she does wrapped in her blankets at night, and that feeling stays with her all day. 

The church is nice, but unfamiliar. Brooke assumes her parents must have taken her at some point, but she doesn’t get any flickers of memory in the pew, and she’s almost grateful that her mind is clear to take in the scene: the bright red and white poinsettias on the altar, the stained glass windows come alive with sunset, the smiling paintings on the ceiling. 

Brooke knows this is a big deal for Vanessa, and she’s so proud of her for asking for help and doing this when it can’t possibly be easy for her. Vanessa is always praising Brooke but reluctant to praise herself, and Brooke vows to make sure Vanessa knows how strong she is. Brooke doesn’t mind Vanessa’s nails digging into her knee; she just wraps her arm around her in safety and relishes in the sturdy warmth of Vanessa against her side. 

Brooke doesn’t know what to do, what the rules are here. Is she supposed to pray? If there _is_ some higher power that let her become a lab experiment, that let Vanessa lose her family, does she _want_ to pray to it? She can’t remember any prayers, if she ever knew them to begin with, but she tells her parents that she’s happy and that she found someone she loves more than anything, just in case they’re listening. 

\---

They set the table and Brooke finishes the whipped cream for her peanut butter-swirl cheesecake, and her and Vanessa are getting the food laid out and giggling over what sweaters everyone will wear when the guilt breaks through, like a wind wailing at the windows that finally shatters the glass. 

It hits her hard at holidays, when everyone is over and they’re a big happy family. When everything she has, all the love shared toward her is on display, filling her senses. That’s when it gets hard to look around at it all and think she deserves it. Killing wasn’t part of her missions, but she didn’t need to kill to ruin lives. And she had ruined so many. She stole formulas and medicines that people spent years on, that could have helped countless people who were sick or suffering. She wounded heroes that could have saved more people if she didn’t force them to retreat. She destroyed buildings and laboratories and homes, stripped the people inside of their safety. She shed blood and broke bones and sent people to the hospital with injuries that would plague them the rest of their lives. 

And she knows. She knows it wasn’t her fault, that she wasn’t in control of herself. She knows she can’t blame herself, and after so many sessions with Nina, she doesn’t. But she still did those things, and someone who did those things didn’t deserve someone like Vanessa, snatching a steaming roll off the tray. Someone that did those things didn’t deserve the friends on their way over, or the cats at her feet, or the safety and happiness she’s been given--

A hand on her shoulder silences the thoughts. “I could hear you thinkin’ a mile away,” Vanessa says softly. “You okay?”

Nina says she doesn’t always have to be okay, and she knows Vanessa would see through the lie anyway, so she shakes her head. 

“What’s wrong?”

“I just--you and A’keria and everyone, everything we have...sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve it, because of what I did.” Brooke sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I just talked about this with Nina, I’m sorry.”

“Shh, you know you don’t have to be sorry,” Vanessa soothes, rubbing circles on Brooke’s back. “If it helps, I just talked about basically the same thing with her. But you do deserve it, Brooke. I know your brain tells you you don’t, but you do. We _both_ do, okay? We deserve to be happy.”

“But--”

“No buts. You listen to me, Brooke Lynn Hytes-Mateo. You’re the sweetest person I’ve ever met. You love me, and you take care of me, and you always help people that need it. And _I_ love you, and I’ll always take care of you, and I’ll always help you when you need it.”

Brooke turns around and pulls Vanessa to her chest, hearts pulsing together. She knows how hard it is for Vanessa to talk about her feelings, but she’s let herself be vulnerable twice today, and Brooke knows how much Vanessa loves her. She knows that tomorrow she’ll take her medication, and next week she’ll go to Nina, and she’ll keep fighting. 

“I love you,” Brooke breathes. 

“I love you too. Always.”

A fist pounds on the door. “Let us in, hoes!” Silky booms. 

Silky barges in first, thrusting the pork roast she made at Brooke to parade up and down the kitchen in her green sweater with working Christmas lights, clashing with her red Gryffindor scarf. Everyone else trails behind, arms loaded with dishes and presents that get tossed on the table to resume the fashion show. 

A’keria flaunts her sparkly red reindeer sweater, griping that the Hufflepuff scarf she was forced to wear doesn’t match. Scarlet is decked out like a Christmas tree, bright green sweater dripping with tinsel that reflects the light so harshly Brooke’s eyes water if she stares too long, Gryffindor scarf blending into her red hair. Finally Yvie strolls in, in a black sweater with a Santa hat-wearing T-Rex on the front, scarf half-blue and half-green. 

“This is my hand-sewn Slytherclaw scarf, because I defy categorization,” Yvie announces proudly. 

“You defy somethin’, all right,” Silky mutters. 

Yvie walks over to Brooke and Vanessa, smirk spreading on her face at Vanessa’s sweater. 

“Tell me you picked that sweater on purpose,” Yvie says. 

“What do you mean? Don’t you be saying anything about my sweater. Frosty is cute--oh, _damn_ ,” Vanessa says, and Brooke realizes for the first time, unable to hold back her smile. 

Yvie roars with laughter and clutches at her side. “I can’t believe you got a Frosty the fucking Snowman sweater and neither of you realized Brooke literally is Frosty. That’s _tragic_.”

“What’s really tragic is them not being Snow Miser and Heat Miser from _Year Without a Santa Claus_ ,” A’keria says. “I would’ve made costumes just to see that.”

“Don’t you all have something to do?” Vanessa demands.

\---

Dinner has been devoured, Silky demanding that A’keria produce a recipe for her cheesy potatoes to ensure she wasn’t being ‘poisoned by rabbit food’, when Yvie gets the _look_. 

Vanessa always refers to it as the _That’s So Raven_ look, prompting Yvie to lecture on the differences between them despite the undeniable accuracy of Vanessa’s comparison.

Yvie stares blankly at the wall, and Brooke herds everyone but Scarlet to the kitchen to give her some privacy. Brooke hates when people are there when she has a flashback, skin prickling with their stares when she returns from wherever her mind was trapped, and she assumes Yvie would feel the same.

They stand around impatiently, and Brooke can’t fight the tension creeping into her shoulders, the sense that _something_ is about to happen, and it intensifies when Scarlet calls them all back in. 

“There’s gonna be a fire,” Yvie explains, hand wrapped around Scarlet’s. “At a townhouse down the street--73’s the number--and the fire department can’t get there.”

“When?” Vanessa asks, urgency radiating off her. 

“Soon,” Yvie says vaguely. “Right after Silk spills her drink.”

“I’m not spilling anything, Momma’s too smooth for that!” Silky swings her arm around to prove her point and her glass flies off the table, the fragments floating in a pool of orange soda on the floor. 

“Damn it, Silk, this is why we can’t have nice things,” Vanessa says. 

“So I guess this is happening,” Scarlet says. 

“Suit up?” Brooke asks. 

Vanessa nods. “Merry fucking Christmas.”

\---

Bright orange flames sear through Vanjie’s vision, smoke billowing around the people assembled on the street. If this goes too far it will be a pile of ash, just like the one-- _You’re not there_ , she reminds herself. 

“You’re sure about this?” Frost asks seriously, like she’s read her mind. 

“I’m sure. Silk said there’s a car accident at some intersection, fire trucks are held up. We have to do this,” Vanjie says. 

“Okay.”

“Silk and A’keria, you’re on crowd control,” Vanjie commands. “Frost”--she has to think of her as Frost now, can’t let the fact that it’s Brooke behind that mask, that she might get hurt, enter her mind-- “Frost, you gotta tame that fire. Me, Scarlet, and Yvie are gonna see who needs help.”

Everyone nods and assumes their positions. 

“Be careful, okay?” Frost says. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Vanjie replies, trying not to think that the last time they had a farewell like this, it ended with her in the snow in a churchyard. 

Vanjie talks to the crowd as Frost fights the flames, trying to determine who got out and who is stuck inside. For all the times she resisted going to Nina, she knows that those sessions and the breathing techniques Nina taught her are the only things keeping her from plummeting into her memories, the only things keeping her alert and on her feet. 

_You’re not there. You’re not there_. She breathes and takes in her surroundings, counting the people on the street, windows on the house. She’s okay.

“There’s a kid on the second floor balcony,” Yvie says. “The fire’s almost gone, but the building isn’t safe. We can’t go in and he can’t come down.”

“Firetruck’s still five minutes out,” Silk informs them. “I don’t know how long the balcony’s gonna hold…”

“I got the kid,” Vanjie says. The back of the townhouse opens into a tiny, snow-covered patio, the kind she hopes she and Brooke can have some day. 

Wailing rings out in the night, a kid standing on the charred balcony, railing melted and gnarled like broken teeth, base warped downward from the heat. A piece of it crashes onto the lawn, and Vanjie knows they don’t have five minutes to wait. The kid’s gonna have to jump. 

“Hey!” she calls up. “It’s gonna be okay. You gotta jump, okay? I’ll catch you.”

“I-I can’t,” the kid cries. 

“Sure you can. Be really brave and jump, okay?” Another piece of metal breaks off, sinking into the snow. She needs to get this kid out _now_. 

“I can’t! I’m not brave like you,” he sniffles. 

The idea pops into her head on a wave of desperation. “You wanna be brave like me?” She peels off her mask—she can just hear Silk scolding her for making mask removal a habit—and sends it soaring over the balcony. “Put my mask on. Pretend you’re a superhero, okay?” 

The kid smooths it over his eyes, and Vanjie counts. “On three, okay? One, two…” The kid inches toward the ledge and jumps, slamming into her arms with a loud cry. 

“You good, kid?” she asks, lowering him gently to the ground. 

“Y-yeah.” His arms close around her in a tight hug. “Thank you.”

“Just my job.” She plays it casual to hide the tears leaking from her eyes. The kid is tiny and warm, like a puppy, against her, and it’s _nice_. She and Brooke have chatted idly about having a kid one day and damn if this doesn’t make her want one. 

He steps back, holding her mask out. “Here.”

Vanjie hesitates. She’s about to tell the kid to keep it, but Silk’s lecture on secrecy runs through her mind. She wouldn’t have cared who saw her and had a mask with her DNA on it before, because she had nothing to lose. But now she has more than she could have dreamed of, a life she wants to protect forever, and she puts the mask back on before taking the kid back to his parents. 

Their happy reunion springs more tears in Vanjie’s eyes, and her head spins around frantically for Frost. Vanjie spots her and runs, colliding into her and hugging her to make sure she’s really okay, heart slowing from its pounding. They’re both okay, and she breathes for the first time since they got outside. 

It’s only when she pulls away that she sees the red painting the side of Frost’s neck. 

“You’re bleeding,” Vanjie says. 

“One of the windows exploded and a piece of glass got me. I’m fine, it’s nothing,” Frost insists, but Yvie emerges and shakes her head lightly. 

“She’s gonna need a couple stitches. It’s a small cut but it’s too deep to heal without them,” Yvie says. 

“Please? I’m fine, really,” Frost begs, and her voice is so small that Vanjie almost tells Yvie to forget it. It pains her to do this, but Frost will be worse off if she doesn’t. 

“I’m sorry, baby, but you need them,” Vanjie says. 

“It’s okay.” Frost sighs in acceptance, taking Vanjie’s hand. Vanjie grips back, sharing some of her strength with Frost. 

“I can do it for you,” Yvie offers. “I had Ra’jah teach me. Then we can just go to your place, no doctors.”

Everyone agrees, and ten minutes later the masks are off as A’keria gets Brooke set up on the couch, helping calm her, and Vanessa follows after Yvie to get her med kit. 

“Yvie?”

“Yeah?”

She grabs Yvie’s arm to make sure she listens. “When you do the stitches, tell Brooke what you’re doing before you do it,” Vanessa says. “They never told her what they were doing at the lab. She gets scared when she doesn’t know.”

Vanessa had almost punched a wall when Brooke admitted that the lab would do their procedures without warning or explanations, and Vanessa had told Ra’jah to go slow and explain everything she did so Brooke wouldn’t be so scared and expect pain every time she saw a doctor.

“I understand.”

Vanessa gets Brooke some Tylenol, knowing not to push her into taking something stronger. Brooke refused anything that made her mind cloudy, anything that made her feel like she wasn’t in control. She swallows the pill and Vanessa drops next to her on the couch, hand wrapping around Brooke’s sweaty one.

“I’m gonna disinfect it now, okay? It’ll sting a little,” Yvie checks with Brooke, who nods. 

“Chicks dig scars, you know,” Silky says. 

“They do?” Brooke asks, cringing as the disinfectant meets her skin. 

Yvie explains that she’s going to start stitching it up. Brooke winces as Yvie pulls her skin together and Vanessa holds on tighter, lifting her other hand to stroke Brooke’s back with a whispered _‘you’re okay’_ before turning to Silky. 

“First of all, don’t be calling me a chick. I’m a tiger or some shit.” Vanessa glares at Silky. “And you know the scars don’t matter to me, baby,” she soothes, knowing how self-conscious Brooke could get. 

“It’ll be a small one,” Yvie adds in reassurance. “Plus it’s behind your ear, so it’s barely noticeable.”

Scarlet talks about how she’s started online education classes and might become a teacher, and A’keria exudes her calm and has them all in tears over the time she moved Silky’s desk chair little by little until Silky completely missed it and fell on the floor, and Brooke is relaxed as Yvie tapes a gauze pad over the wound. 

“All done,” Yvie says. 

“It’s present time, bitches!” Scarlet yells. 

\---

_Brooke slips her arm around Plastique as they pose for the camera. The air is alive with conversation around her, the ballet studio Christmas party in eager discussion over the upcoming tour._

_“You nervous, Brooke?” Plastique asks, once they’re away from all the phone flashes._

_“Maybe a little. It’s my first tour as co-director, you know?” She sighs. “I can’t believe this is really happening.” Some small part of her wishes her parents could have been here to see it. Next May marks 12 years since she lost them. Most days she’s fine, the absence just a dull ache in the back of her mind, like a missing tooth you only noticed when your tongue brushed the empty space. But sometimes, when she’s around lots of people, people that_ could _feel like family if Brooke would just let them, the absence burns like a raw wound._

_“You’re gonna kill it. I’ve only been your assistant a year, but I know you got this.”_

_“Thanks.”_

_“Soooo…” Plastique begins, the word drawn out until she runs out of breath._

_“So?”_

_“I think 2018 should be the year we get you a girlfriend.”_

_Brooke sighs. “Look, I appreciate the thought, but we’ve got the tour coming up. I don’t have time.”_

_“I just want to see you happy, B,” Plastique says softly._

_“I am happy,” Brooke insists. She is. She has her dream job, friends, a tour set out in front of her in just three months. So why does it feel like she’s lying?_

_“I know you are,” Plastique says. “It’s just sometimes I feel like a part of you isn’t. Like a part of you is lonely. You deserve someone that loves you.”_

_Brooke doesn’t say anything. Plastique knows about her parents but she’s never brought them up, if dancing around the topic counts as bringing them up._

_Brooke plasters a smile on her face. “After the tour wraps up, maybe I’ll go on one of those dating apps.” Maybe it_ wouldn’t _be so bad to have someone to share things with, someone who would love her even when she got quiet sometimes, lost in her own thoughts._

_Plastique claps her hands and then pulls Brooke on to the dance floor. Brooke goes with it, letting her body take over and clear her mind, the night blurring by as she twirls around with Plastique._

_Can she feel her body hurtling toward that night, just three months away? Can she feel the pain as the bones in her arm and leg shatter, as her ribs puncture her insides? The emptiness in her mind when she tries to speak her name and remember who she is? The loneliness crushing her when she goes over a year with no friends to laugh with, no one to talk to at all?_

_She can’t, and Brooke Lynn Hytes dances a happy woman._

\---

Brooke forgets all about the cut behind her ear as the living room fills with shouts, Yvie shrieking that the dinosaur succulent holder she got will look great in her and Scarlet’s apartment and A’keria demanding everyone look at her new jewelry. 

Brooke unwraps new cookbooks she can’t wait to read, plus new boots and clothes and more blankets, so she can roll herself up into what Vanessa calls a blanket burrito at night.

Vanessa loves the new cooling pajamas Brooke got her, and the stuffed lion she got just because it was cute. Vanessa opens the red dress she would drool at in the window of her favorite store, along with sneakers and a fancy purse, and everything is better than Brooke could have dreamed. 

She’s surrounded by family, and she doesn’t fight it. She lets herself smile and laugh and feel loved. 

Brooke fiddles with a bow as Vanessa opens her last two presents. 

Vanessa’s eyes widen as she sees the flowers neatly arranged in a shadow box. 

“Wait. Brooke, are these…”

Brooke nods. 

When they first moved in together, after Brooke got shot and was recovering mentally and physically from what she’d been through, Vanessa would bring home flowers every Friday. Soft lilacs one week, sunny orange tulips another, deep irises the next. Vanessa had said she knew they couldn’t magically heal Brooke, but she thought they might cheer her up a little. Even on her bad days, when the worries and anxiety preyed on her and told her she was worthless, the flowers could bring a smile to Brooke’s face, give her hope that she would be okay. 

Vanessa didn’t know, but Brooke had taken a flower from each bouquet and watched tutorials on how to preserve them, keeping them in her dresser so they would always be near. 

She decided to give them to Vanessa, so they can both have the memory of those days, bodies becoming accustomed to each other, peeking over the vase of flowers and smiling during breakfast, hopeful of their future. 

“Brooke, they’re beautiful,” Vanessa breathes. “I love them so much.” She reaches for Brooke’s hand, and Brooke gives her a quick kiss on the cheek before turning to her present. 

She rips the paper and lifts the lid and gasps. 

Three framed photos lay in the box. 

Photos of herself. 

Brooke’s jaw hangs open but nothing comes out. 

She’s maybe nine years old in the first one, dressed as Clara in the Nutcracker, smiling between people she recognizes as her parents. Another of her in a black graduation robe, parents on either side of her. The third is her alone, maybe 20, in a light blue ballerina dress with matching pointe shoes. 

Brooke’s fingertips brush over the glass, grasping out for these versions of her from years ago, for a life and family she can now look at whenever she wants and not have to force their images in her mind.

She turns to Vanessa, eyes asking the question she can’t speak. 

“Plastique called me a few weeks ago,” Vanessa begins. “She’s moving apartments and found those. She took them from your office at the studio after the crash. She wanted you to have them.”

Vanessa reaches for her, and Brooke knows then she’s sobbing. Vanessa just holds her as her body quakes, tears soaking Vanessa’s collar. Brooke will never have the words to thank her for this, but from the way Vanessa strokes her hair, Brooke thinks she knows. 

“Shit, you got me crying like a Hallmark movie up in here,” A’keria says. 

Brooke pulls away with a laugh, holding out her last box to Vanessa. 

Vanessa pulls out the train tickets with a look of confusion. “South Carolina?” she asks. 

Brooke grins. “I know how much you like the beach, and A’keria said some girl did you wrong with a beach vacation before, and I wanted to do it right. The ride is kind of long, I hope that’s okay. I—a plane, I just can’t.” Brooke knows she’s made a lot of progress, but all she has to do is think of flying and her ears fill with screams and her whole body plummets. 

Vanessa silences her with a squeal, pulling her in for a hug. 

“At least you can put your thousand swimsuits to use, Vanj,” Silky says, and Vanessa whips wrapping paper at her.

Brooke unwraps her second present, and her eyes aren’t even dry before more tears fall. It’s the pink music box she’d seen in the mall, almost like the one she’d seen in her dreams. Vanessa must have figured it was important to her. Another stolen piece of her past reclaimed. 

“You gotta open it,” Vanessa explains. A smirk wins out on Vanessa’s face as Brooke lifts the lid, and she can’t figure out why until she sees...train tickets?

“Not _again_ ,” Silky moans. “Y’all need to get your asses together on the matching presents.”

“I thought maybe you’d want to see Toronto again,” Vanessa says. “I’ve never been, and we can see it together.”

Fresh tears well up and Brooke’s warmth intensifies. She can’t remember much about where she used to live, and now she’ll get to experience it all with Vanessa. Visiting her old life with her new life at her side. 

“I literally can’t right now.” Scarlet snorts as they embrace. 

“I think this brings new meaning to ‘make the Yuletide gay,” Yvie says . 

Scarlet pins a bow on Yvie’s head and A’keria amasses a boulder of wrapping paper that gets kicked around, and Brooke grins with a joy she knows she deserves. 

\---

“Bingo, bitch! That’s three in a row!” Silky says, hoarding her candy prizes like a dragon. 

“This isn’t even statistically possible,” Yvie says. 

“I don’t bow to the laws of statistics!” Silky yells. “How dare you think you could beat me!”

Vanessa rests her feet on Brooke’s lap under the table, shaking her head with a smile at the chaos around them, Silky climbing on a chair for a victory dance. 

Everyone is stuffed with cheesecake and cookies when they finally leave. Vanessa pulls Brooke to their room and teases that she has one last present while taking off her sweater, and Brooke lets Vanessa’s touch fill her with enough love to split the room apart.

“Can we cuddle?” Brooke asks after, both of them breathless and tingling. 

“Of course, baby.”

Vanessa wraps her arm around Brooke’s waist, and Vanessa Mateo and Brooke Lynn Hytes fall asleep happy women.


	3. Christmas Future: I have never known color like this morning reveals to me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brooke and Vanessa celebrate Christmas future with Lily

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the support on this! Thank you as always to Writ for betaing and encouraging me through this whole thing.  
> Chapter title from In a Week by Hozier

_The very first time Frost and Vanjie meet is on Christmas Eve._

_The paths that bring them there may be different--a fire whose smoldering wreckage creates a woman burdened by memories and an ice storm whose piercing shards mold a woman entirely devoid of memories--but those paths converge just the same._

_It’s not the last time their paths will meet, paths that will lead to fighting and hatred and forgiveness and healing and loving, even marriage and a daughter._

_But the path begins with enemies meeting in the snow._

\---

“I wanna put the star on!” Lily squeals. 

Vanessa smiles as Brooke carefully lifts Lily into the air, Vanessa placing her hands on Brooke’s hips to steady her, just in case (and just to touch Brooke’s hips).

“You can reach this high, Mommy?” Lily asks in wonder as she attaches the star. 

“She sure can.” Vanessa smiles. “I said the same thing as you when she did that the first time.”

Brooke brings Lily back down and she starts placing ornaments on the lowest branches, and Vanessa has to step back and smile. Sometimes she sees the tiny blue Vans with yellow flowers by the back door and can’t believe those little sneakers really fit someone, and that that someone is their _daughter._

This is the first Christmas Lily really knows what’s going on, and Brooke and Vanessa have had too much fun shopping, sledding, and snowman-building. Brooke absolutely loves the snow, a human polar bear, and will play with Lily until they’re almost frozen solid and Vanessa forces them inside for hot chocolate. Their backyard is the perfect battleground for snowball fights and an army of snowmen, the house a few miles from the city and everything they always wanted, purchased a few months before they adopted Lily. 

“Mama, Mommy says we can make cookies after!” Lily announces, running up to her. 

“She did, did she?” Vanessa scoops Lily up and helps her reach some higher branches ( _‘who’s gonna help you reach them?’_ Brooke teases) and smiles as Brooke kisses the top of her head. 

It’s been a busy year, one Vanessa couldn’t have gotten through without Brooke by her side. Vanessa’s nights were filled with online business courses and Brooke’s steady encouragement as she and A’keria became co-owners of the salon. Vanessa works mornings there and afternoons at home to stay with Lily, while Brooke takes mornings with Lily before going to directing duties at the ballet company at noon. It’s a lot of shuffling out the door, a lot of evenings where they manage to cook dinner, watch a movie, and read Lily a bedtime story before collapsing into their own bed, but Vanessa wouldn’t change a thing. 

That scared woman who refused to let anyone in is still inside her somewhere, coming out in a panicked fear anytime Lily gets too close to the fireplace, but Vanessa isn’t alone anymore. 

She no longer needs to burn herself down in order to live. 

\---

_Somehow, Vanessa’s second Christmas without her family hurts worse than the first one._

_Last year, the wound was still fresh, not even scabbed over yet, and it wasn’t like she expected to be okay. But this year, she feels like the wound should have gotten better but hasn’t; it’s festered instead of healed. This year, she had expected to be okay, and it’s only making it worse that she isn’t._

_A’keria has told her about some Dr. West, suggested that a therapy session might help, but Vanessa refuses. It’s not that she thinks it won’t help, because she knows therapy works; it’s that if she goes, she’ll have to talk about it and she just can’t do that. Whatever thin patches are holding her together would split right open._

_Silky and A’keria come over and they eat and exchange gifts, and Vanessa knows they’re doing it to help her feel better, but it’s not working._

_When she sees the news report that Frost has struck again, something in her snaps. That Frost bitch has been wreaking havoc for almost a month now, always fleeing just before Vanessa can fight her._

_She pulls on her suit as A’keria and Silky beg her to stay._

_“Frost beat the crap out of Shuga Rush_ and _Honeybee last week, and you wanna take her on?” Silky argues._

_“It’s Christmas Eve,” A’keria adds. “Your ass belongs inside.”_

_“I’m getting that blue Gatorade hoe,” Vanjie vows as she heads out into the snow._

\---

Brooke helps Lily tie her green apron on and can’t believe how _little_ it is, or that she has a daughter little enough to wear it. Sometimes she can’t believe she has a daughter at all, or their cozy house, or that she still gets to curl up in bed with Vanessa every night, even all these years later. 

The snow flew early in November and the past month has been spent mostly in the backyard, playing with Lily. Vanessa doesn’t love the snow the way Brooke does, but she’ll still come out and play with them as much as she can. Brooke even got her special thermal gloves so she could make snowballs without them melting in seconds. 

Brooke watches Lily’s tiny hands roll out the cookie dough, gripping the rolling pin to help her while Vanessa tosses chocolate chips in her mouth, and the safety of it all, the love in the kitchen, are so great that Brooke has to excuse herself to the bathroom because she doesn’t want Lily to get scared if she sees Mommy crying. 

She breathes slowly, the joy of the past three years flooding her, absolutely worth all the fears she and Vanessa had. It hadn’t been an easy decision to walk away from the superhero life, and it wasn’t one they made lightly. There had been several late-night conversations and a few joint appointments with Nina and endless questions to be answered. Is it wrong to put themselves and their wants over a city they’ve been protecting all these years? Is it wrong _not_ to stop crime when they had the ability to do so? Should they feel like every crime to occur after they quit is their fault? 

But the fighting took its toll more and more, bruises lasting longer, injuries more frequent, a soreness in their muscles that never went away. What they both wanted was a child, one they would love and support no matter what, and they simply couldn’t be out risking their lives every night with a baby at home.

They hung up the masks (still in the closet just in case) and began the process of moving on. 

Brooke doesn’t regret it, even when she sees crime in the news that she could have stopped, and she knows Vanessa doesn’t either. Lily is more than they dreamed of, everything they ever wanted. 

“You okay?” Vanessa knocks. 

_She always knows_ , Brooke marvels. 

She opens the door and pulls Vanessa into her arms. “I’m okay. I just--I never thought I would be so happy, and sometimes it really hits me.”

Happy hadn’t even been a concept at the lab. They only cared if she was physically well enough to follow orders, not what she felt. Brooke never felt much anyway, the drugs like a veil over her that stopped any emotion or feeling from rising too far. In her early recovery days, her emotions were like a shaken-up snowglobe where the snow wouldn’t settle, but floated around helplessly, and she and Nina had spent several sessions just understanding and naming the feelings she had. 

“I know, baby. I love you both so much,” Vanessa says. 

“Mama, we have to finish the cookies!” Lily yells from the kitchen. Brooke and Vanessa laugh and head after their daughter. 

—-

_The snow falls thick and full, like pieces of a cloud around Frost. She pauses just to watch it fall, each flake silencing the noise around her, car horns blaring and people shouting and laughing and sirens wailing. It’s much louder than the lab, so loud it hurts her ears, and the snow somehow soothes her._

_The lab said Christmas Eve is a good night to strike, and they’re right. Frost has already stolen weapon blueprints from Atlas Labs and sent Black Diamond home with a broken nose. She ducks into an alley to review her missions when a light from a tree catches her eye and momentarily blinds her with its brilliance._

_Has she ever held a bulb in her hand, seen her smiling face reflected in its surface as she hung it from a branch? Has she ever gotten a present like she saw people carrying earlier, ripping through the paper to see what surprise awaited her? Was she ever lifted up out of the snow by her mother, like the little boy she saw yesterday?_

_Of course she hasn’t. She’s being bad. Her breaths are painful and her heart clenches in her chest. She forces out a slow stream of air. She has to focus, she has to--_

_“So, you must be the famous Frost,” a sandpaper voice booms, and Frost jumps, spinning around to see a short woman with eyes burning bright even surrounded by her black eye mask._

_“Who are you?” Frost asks in confusion. She hopes that not too many people know about her, because the lab will surely punish her if she blows their cover._

_“I’m Vanjie, and don’t you forget it, Frosty,” the woman--Vanjie--says with a fireblast. Frost has barely stopped it before Vanjie yells something else and runs at her with a punch, and Frost throws one back, grateful for something to stop the bad thoughts she was having._

_Vanjie is a good fighter, strong and fast, but lacking control in some of her punches and blasts. Still, Frost has never met an opponent that could keep up with her. It’s almost—fun. Definitely the most even fight she’s had since she started, breathlessly accepting hits and giving them right back. They trade kicks and punches, each move tight and quick and focused, and Frost’s mind starts buzzing, clearing, maybe, all the Christmas lights and car horns brighter and louder, and that means she’ll need another dose soon. She’s not supposed to feel like this._

_She would keep going all night but a siren rings out and Vanjie flees, too far away for Frost to track once she clears through a last arc of flame._

_Frost almost wishes she would come back._

\---

Brooke smiles as Vanessa glares up at her.

“Remind me again how I let you talk me into this?” Vanessa asks as she laces her skates. 

“Because Lily really wanted to go ice-skating and we can’t say no?” Brooke says. 

“Sounds about right.”

Brooke stands, unsure, in her own rented skates, holding Lily’s hand. Skaters whizz past them, laughing and shouting, and Brooke is grateful again for the therapy and meds that help her feel okay in such noisy areas. 

“Let’s do this, twinkle toes. I bet you’re gonna be like one of them figure skaters in the Olympics.” Vanessa finishes her skates and stands up, shuffling to the ice rink. 

Brooke doesn’t know if she’s ever been skating, but she’s figuring her dance ability might at least keep her on her feet. Vanessa, on the other hand…

“My body ain’t supposed to go this way!” Vanessa yelps, stuck in a half-split on the ice, and Brooke pulls her up as she snorts with laughter. 

“I got you, don’t worry.” Brooke tugs along Vanessa with one hand and Lily with the other. She has enough balance to keep herself from falling, and the super-strength to keep both of them steady too, and they make slow laps around the rink while they talk about the upcoming Christmas dinner at their house. 

“I think I got this, let’s go faster!” Vanessa says. She pulls Brooke so hard that she lets go of Lily, and it’s just the two of them barreling along.

“I don’t think this is a good id--” They crash into the wall and land in a heap, arms and legs tangled together. 

“Let’s do that again!” Vanessa yells, her words muffled by Brooke’s leg, which has fallen over her face. 

They untangle themselves and stand up, only to burst into laughter so fierce they fall all over again. Steaming cups of hot chocolate warm them up once they get off the ice, and Lily insists everyone watch _Frozen_ again, her favorite because she thinks Mommy looks like Elsa ( _if she only knew_ , Vanessa thinks). Her second favorite is _Moana_ because Mama looks like Moana and screeches like Te Kā ( _kid’s got a sense of humor_ , Brooke thinks).

Lily falls asleep laying across the both of them and Brooke places her gently into bed, Vanessa pulling her covers up with a smile shared between them. 

\---

“I think we should get Lily a dog for Christmas,” Vanessa begins one night. “Might be nice for Riley to have a dog friend.” She’s in her favorite position, head on Brooke’s chest and arm around her waist, thumb stroking the skin on her hip. 

“Okay!” Brooke agrees, and Vanessa has to laugh. She doesn’t know why she thought Brooke would be harder to convince. Brooke loves animals, and they already have three; what’s one more?

“I got my dog for Christmas when I was six.” The confession comes out of her without warning, her heart speeding up until Brooke brings a hand up to cup her cheek, and everything slows down again. Vanessa never feels safer than she does in Brooke’s arms, and she tells her all about that Christmas morning, ripping the lid off the box to see that perfect little puppy, how she and her brother played fetch with it every day. 

Brooke lets out soft little puffs of smiling laughter, pressing a kiss to the top of Vanessa’s head when she’s done. 

“I’m proud of you,” Brooke whispers. 

“For what?”

“For just being you,” Brooke answers, and Vanessa hugs her tighter. 

They go to the shelter the next night, Yvie and Scarlet taking on babysitting duty (‘If we come back and our child is talking about conspiracy theories, your babysitting career is over, Yvie,’ Vanessa threatens). The worker tells them there’s an older chihuahua named Rosie who would love to have a home. 

Brooke kneels down by the cage, speaking softly to the dog. It takes Vanessa back to when they first adopted Henry and Apollo, and Brooke had been afraid she would get in trouble for touching them. It seems like a lifetime ago, but also just days ago, her life with Brooke so beautiful and warm and safe that sometimes Vanessa doesn’t even know how much time has passed.

“Hey there,” Brooke whispers. “You can come out, I won’t hurt you.”

The dog creeps slowly to the front of the cage, tentatively licking Brooke’s hand and allowing Brooke to pet her. “Good girl,” Brooke says. Vanessa smiles as Brooke strokes the fur. Animals, especially ones that had been hurt, always trusted Brooke. It was almost like they knew she had been hurt too, and would never, ever harm them. 

“We’ll take her,” Vanessa says. 

\---

_Vanjie steals Silky’s police scanner and catches Frost in an alleyway. Her neon green boots don’t even have heels and she still towers over Vanjie, which pisses her off right away._

_“So, you must be the famous Frost,” Vanjie says, delighting as the ice bitch startles. Not so tough, is she, scared of a little noise?_

_“Who are you?” Frost asks._

_“I’m Vanjie, and don’t you forget it, Frosty.”_

_She revs up a fireball, small to keep control, and throws it at Frost’s face, flames dying out when they meet her ice blast._

_“Come get me, you stupid snowball!”_

_Vanjie runs at Frost before she can move, sinking a punch deep into her rib cage that will definitely bruise, if not crack something. She follows it with another punch, adrenaline running through her, and it’s probably wrong that she’s getting such a rush beating another person, but it’s the first time she’s felt_ anything _in months, and even if it’s probably not good, it’s better than feeling absolutely nothing, like an empty shell of a person._

_Frost is light on her feet and counters with a punch of her own, and Vanjie admits she’s good. She sees now how Frost has beaten so many heroes. Frost knows how to move those stupidly long limbs, her movements focused and controlled. It’s an even fight, and Vanjie loses herself in it, beyond the stupid jokes she uses to make it all bearable, giving herself over to the anger and satisfaction of every kick and hit. She’s locked in the fight for what feels like hours, Frost keeping up with her, when she hears police sirens. She runs, leaving a column of fire behind her to delay Frost, and is down the street before anyone can see her. Frost doesn’t give chase, and Vanjie’s not sure if she’s disappointed or not._

_The scanner is silent, and she decides to pack it in. She passes by an animal shelter, which proudly advertises that all their animals have been adopted. Vanjie had a dog once. Except she wasn’t Vanjie then. She was just Vanessa, with no idea of what was coming. The woman she is now has no idea how to be the girl she was then. The woman she is now has no idea how to be, period. How to live in a world where terrible things happen and she is just left to pick up the pieces._

_She wipes away her tears and heads back home. If the shelter wasn’t empty, she thinks she would have taken a dog for herself._

_But it’s probably better that she didn’t. It’s hard enough keeping herself alive these days._

\---

Brooke and Vanessa send Lily with A’keria and Silky for the day while they wrap Lily’s presents.

“We’re putting all this shit in bags next year,” Vanessa says and Brooke snorts. 

Sticky tape remnants cover Brooke’s fingers, Vanessa with two paper cuts on hers from wrapping paper mishaps. 

Brooke looks at the bright green wrapping paper patterned with snowmen and elves, and all she can think is that all the best gifts she’s gotten in her life wouldn’t fit in a box (well, Vanessa probably could).

Lily herself had been an early Christmas present three years ago. Brooke can hardly believe she’s three already, that they’ve been through three years of diaper-changing and nighttime-soothing and _Sesame Street_ -watching. 

When they had decided to have a kid, IVF had been the first plan. After endless testing, Vanessa wordlessly holding Brooke’s hand through all the needles, and even more waiting, they learned that because of all the changes that occurred in their bodies when they got their powers, neither of them would be able to carry without severe risks for themselves and the child, and their dream of a baby with Brooke’s green eyes or Vanessa’s brown waves was shattered. 

That had been a horrible week in their house. They each blamed themselves and started every morning with bloodshot eyes they didn’t mention. Brooke retreated into herself, avoiding the world and apologizing over and over while Vanessa exploded out into the world, screaming at every tiny inconvenience, until A’keria coaxed them into a joint session with Nina. They both cried and were reassured that it was no one’s fault, that they weren’t undeserving of a child in any way, and when the heaviness weighing them down lifted away, they embraced for the first time since hearing the news and it was like coming home.

They started the adoption process the day after their session, their names down at the agency from January. The wait was endless, and the longer it dragged on, the more it seemed that people were mocking them with handfuls of kids in everything from winter coats to rain boots to bathing suits as the seasons changed and they still remained childless. It felt like they would never have a child at all, when the first day of December they got a call that a two-day-old baby’s adoption had fallen through and she could be theirs if they were ready. 

They had already painted the extra bedroom in the house in soft greens and yellows, but it remained empty, cheery paint laughing at them and floors collecting dust, because neither of them could bear to fill it with a crib and stuffed animals, fill it with the hope and promise of a child’s laughter, only to have to take everything down if the agency never called. 

When the call came, they brought in the reinforcements (bribing Silky with pizza) and bought everything for the nursery and got it set up in hours, Brooke and Vanessa taking the drive to meet their baby right after. 

It was a two-hour drive to the hospital upstate, the road stretching forever as Brooke fought between excitement and fear. Eleven months of waiting, of discussing names and talking longingly about taking their kid sledding and to the beach and having a tiny human in their house, and somehow Brooke needed more time, legs shaking with fear that maybe this was all a joke, or that the agency would change their minds and say that Brooke and Vanessa weren’t fit to be parents, and it was only when Vanessa pulled over that Brooke saw she was crying too. 

They clutched hands, their intertwined fingers sharing the message of love and support, that they would both be there for each other whatever happened. Vanessa got back on the road, and they walked into the hospital holding hands, bringing their baby home and ready to give her the love that burst out of them the second they saw her. 

“How the hell do I wrap a soccer ball?” Vanessa asks with a laugh. Brooke joins in, pulled out of her memories. 

“Put it in a bag?” Brooke says.

Vanessa sighs and grabs a _Frozen_ gift bag, shoving the ball inside. “Okay, no round presents next year either! What the hell were we thinking?”

“I think I’m gonna need a shower to get all this tape off me,” Brooke says, peeling one last piece off. 

“I might need one too,” Vanessa says. She pauses, a mischievous sparkle popping into her eyes. “You know, Lily’s still with Silky and A’keria till dinner…”

Brooke scoops Vanessa off the floor, carrying her bridal-style to the bathroom. 

\---

The days get closer and closer to Christmas and Lily is exploding with excitement, listing all the cookies she’ll leave for Santa and all the cards she wants to make for her aunts and all the things she’ll make if she gets her toy kitchen. Her little legs kick under the covers and it takes four bedtime stories to lull her into sleep. Vanessa took story duty tonight, and Brooke finishing putting dishes away when Vanessa comes in, shuffling over to Brooke with a groan. 

“Bedtime story go well, then?” Brooke teases, massaging Vanessa’s shoulders. 

“What I want to know,” Vanessa says in the serious tone of someone contemplating the mysteries of the universe, “is why this Mr. Fox dude is wearing socks. He’s a _fox_. He doesn’t need ‘em.”

“I don’t think I know the answer to that, baby,” Brooke says, turning Vanessa around to face her. 

Vanessa slips a hand under her shirt, fingers running up to her heart--

“Mama, will you read me another story?” Lily asks, appearing in the kitchen out of thin air. “What’s on your tummy, Mommy?” Lily asks curiously, pointing to the scar above her waistline where the doctor shot her. 

Brooke stiffens. Vanessa’s hand flies out from beneath the shirt and moves to Brooke’s back, fingers brushing near her shoulder. Brooke knows Vanessa will say something if she can’t, but she wants to try. “Oh, that--that’s nothing, honey. Mommy just got hurt there before.”

“Hurt?” Lily’s eyes widen. She runs to the bathroom and comes back with a box of _Star Wars_ Band-Aids, stretching up to Brooke’s waist and lifting her shirt to stick one over the old scar. “There,” she says proudly.

“Thank you, sweetie. It feels better already,” Brooke says truthfully, blinking away tears as she hugs her daughter. 

“Come on honey, I’ll read you another story,” Vanessa offers, taking Lily’s hand. 

“ _Fox in Socks?_ ” Lily asks hopefully.

Vanessa nods, throwing a grimace over her shoulder at Brooke on the way out. Brooke lingers in the doorway, smiling along as Vanessa reads in her rough voice, watching her kiss Lily’s forehead after she falls asleep. Brooke remembers when the emptiness inside her almost consumed her, but now it is love powerful enough to do the same. 

\---

“Do you think we’ll ever have to tell her? How do we even say something like that?” Vanessa asks in bed that night, her mind spinning with worries. Lily has already noticed one of Brooke’s scars; how long until she wants to know how Brooke _really_ got them? How long until they couldn’t explain away why Mama’s hand is burning hot and Mommy’s is freezing cold?

Brooke turns to her, understanding, as always, the words unsaid. Will they have to tell their daughter they have superpowers? That they both went through hell? That they used to fight criminals for a living?

“You remember when we first brought her home, and I was afraid to hold her?” Brooke asks.

“Of course,” Vanessa replies, unsure where this is going. 

“You remember what you told me?” 

Vanessa can’t forget the day they brought Lily home, watching her big blue eyes blink and her tiny fingers flex, their hearts full of all the laughs and challenges and beautiful firsts that were about to come. 

Brooke had set the baby carrier on the table and froze, voicing her worries that she would hurt Lily, or make her sick because her hands were so cold. Her worries made every one of Vanessa’s rise up after she fought all day to push them down. What if they did something wrong and caused her pain? What if she was crying and they couldn’t give her what she needed? 

And then the answer had come to her. They would do it like they had done everything, from gunshots to lab blowups to death visions.

“I said we would hold her together,” Vanessa answers now, stepping out of the memory and into the present. 

Brooke just smiles at her. 

“ _Oh,_ ” Vanessa says. “Oh, shit, Brooke. That was smooth.”

Brooke snickers and pulls her into an embrace. Vanessa nestles her head against Brooke’s chest, safe and secure in the thought that no matter what happens, they’ll always do it together. 

\---

_Frost completes her last mission, stealing a drug formula that the lab says is dangerous for anyone but them, and is on her way back to her motorcycle when something pink catches her eye._

_It’s a window display, pastel pink string lights framing the scene, like a picture she wants to climb into and live in. In the center of the display, raised on a pristine white pedestal, sits a pink music box, a small ballerina inside. For some reason she thinks she’s seen it before, that she even held it in her hands._

_Frost stares at it, imagining the ballerina spinning, imagining herself spinning, light as air as she leaps--she rubs furiously at her eyes. She’s not in the air, a silk costume soft on her skin. She’s on solid sidewalk, and she’s being bad. Frost has never seen this box before; it’s probably just her medicine making her think that. They had given her an extra dose today, and she had been good and didn’t even squirm when she saw the needle, and the doctor said she might be a little confused._

_She has to go back to the lab and give them her report, but she can’t tear her eyes away from the box. She wants it so badly but she can’t understand why. She doesn’t think she’s ever wanted_ anything _like this, and why a music box?_

I could break the glass and have it right now, _she thinks, heart racing. She readies an ice blast--no, she’s disobeying, and that’s bad. She’s already had bad thoughts of wanting to stay with Vanjie to clear her head some more, and she can’t be late too; late means punishment. She races back to the lab and gives them her report before dragging herself up into her apartment._

_Her body is heavy, being pulled down to the ground, her head pounding. The emptiness of the apartment stares at her, carving a hole into her chest that will never fill. She almost wishes she had a Christmas tree, just like the ones she saw in peoples’ windows, to bring some life to the empty space._

_She should eat something, but all she wants is to sleep, to forget the buzzing in her head and the burning eyes of that fire woman. Vanjie. What a strange name._

_She crawls into bed, her aching body asleep in minutes, tumbling into dreams of tiny hands holding a music box and a little girl sitting on a bike. The girl has blonde hair, and Frost is close, almost close enough to see her...but she never sees the girl’s face, and when she wakes up, she’s forgotten the dream entirely._

\---

Vanessa rolls over, blinking awake, the clock flashing 1:53 on Christmas Eve morning. There’s another dim light behind her, and she turns around to see Brooke’s phone screen, blinding in the dark.

“Baby, why are you still up?” Vanessa asks. 

Brooke doesn’t answer, just stares intently at her phone. Vanessa’s trying not to panic, forcing her breathing to slow. It’s not a flashback; she’s seen enough of them to know from Brooke’s eyes that she’s here, not trapped in time somewhere. But Brooke is always so alert and attentive, so why hasn’t she reacted?

“Brooke?” Vanessa asks again. “It’s almost 2, what are you doing?” 

She lightly taps Brooke’s shoulder, hoping not to scare her but unsure what else to do. Her heart only resumes its pounding when tears run down Brooke’s face. “Brooke, what’s wrong? Please tell me so I can help you,” she begs, helplessness bubbling up into her voice. She glances at Brooke’s phone screen, sees the picture from yesterday afternoon, the three of them posing with the gingerbread house Lily made. 

“I--I was looking at the pictures,” Brooke sniffles, “and I--what if she forgets us? What if what happened to me happens to her and she can’t remember, or what if she loses us and forgets?” 

Vanessa’s heart shatters, the shards puncturing every part of her. Brooke is trembling now, and Vanessa pries the phone from her hands, trying to figure out how she’ll keep Brooke together when Brooke’s fear makes Vanessa herself want to fall apart. 

“Shhh,” she whispers, pulling Brooke’s shaking body to her and holding on tight. “Brooke, we--it’s okay. It’s okay. The lab is gone. They won’t hurt anyone again. And we...we just love Lily, okay? We can’t protect her from everything, but we can try, and we love her. We love her, and whatever happens, she knows that we love her. That’s all we can do.” Vanessa’s crying now too, shuddering sobs that tear through her body, she and Brooke holding each other to keep themselves whole. 

She wishes that nothing could ever harm Lily, but she knows that just isn’t possible. There’ll be things like scraped knees and broken hearts and other hurts, both big and small, that there’s just no protecting her from. She and Brooke know too well the kind of pain this world has to offer. But they also know the love available, the love enabling her to look at Brooke all these years later and still feel calm and safe, like everything is all right. The love present in a scene of them curled up on the couch, laughing at movies they’ve seen ten times, knowing they were safe in each other’s arms. The love that has helped them through all the good and bad times, brought them together with their daughter in an unbreakable bond. 

Brooke pulls away, wiping her eyes. “You’re right. It’s just hard, you know? Knowing what we know and still wanting to believe things can always be good.”

“I know. But we love each other, and we love her, and we always will. Whatever happens, we’re in this together.”

“I love you.” Brooke is calm again, both of them cried out. Brooke kisses her cheek, the touch soft and warm and familiar, the feeling of home on two cool lips. 

“I love you too. Always,” Vanessa says, pulling Brooke back to her. 

Vanessa lets herself get washed away in Brooke’s steady breathing, both of them off to sleep in a few minutes, exhausted after all the tears, and wake up to a Christmas Eve shining bright with possibility. 

\---

Vanessa gets Lily set up on her chair by the counter, Lily wearing her green apron that doesn’t serve much purpose because she has cinnamon on her forehead and eggshells in her hair. Her tiny hands dip the bread in the egg mixture and Vanessa tells her she’s doing a wonderful job. 

Brooke helps Lily flip the French toast in the pan, and the loving look in Brooke’s eyes makes Vanessa warm and renewed after the 2am sobbing session. Lily gets whipped cream all over her nose just like Brooke, and Vanessa knows they’ll always be okay. 

The rest of the day passes by in layering lasagna and setting the table and giving Lily two baths ( _‘she sure can make a mess like you,’_ Brooke teases) before finally getting her into the black leggings with tiny snowmen all over them and her Disney Christmas sweater. 

Vanessa pulls on the soft red sweater Brooke had gotten her for Christmas last year, Brooke in the oversized blue sweater Vanessa had bought her, feet clad in green Nutcracker fuzzy socks. Vanessa had gotten her more pairs for Christmas this year--a gift for Vanessa as well, because without them, Brooke's feet are blocks of ice when they brush against her in bed.

The four of them come rushing in all at once, Silky bearing that godforsaken Bingo set, dropping gift bags on the floor and flinging coats at Vanessa. 

“Do I look like a human coat rack to you?” she barks, throwing them all on the bed.

“Lily, come say hi to your favorite aunt!” A’keria says, opening her arms. 

“We’re _all_ her aunts,” Yvie points out, which is true. Vanessa and Brooke had also appointed Silky and A’keria as godmothers, after realizing that neither of them knew a single man. A’keria had even thrown together a baby shower after they brought Lily home, insisting that no godchild of hers would be going without one. 

“Yeah, but I’m the favorite,” A’keria says, lifting Lily up. 

Vanessa lets the night go by, and she thinks of how they’ve all grown, not just her and Brooke but everyone. A’keria is one of the top hair stylists in the city, Scarlet started her new day job as a preschool teacher, and Yvie is assistant director to Silky at the base, and Vanessa just looks around and loves. She watches Scarlet fix Lily’s bow for her and Yvie help butter her bread, watches A’keria and Silky nudge each other and smile without words, and Vanessa finally believes all those words Nina has told her: she deserves to be here, alive, loving her family. 

\---

“Ugh, could you even imagine moving this toy kitchen set without super-strength?” Brooke asks, the 1am moon glowing through the windows as they arrange Lily’s presents under the tree. 

“I just hope Rosie doesn’t make any noise tonight. She a loud little thing,” Vanessa says. They had kept Rosie at A’keria’s for the week, setting the dog up in their bedroom tonight to surprise Lily tomorrow. 

“Just like her mama.” Brooke smiles. Vanessa swats at her as she sets down the last of the boxes before they move on to the milk and cookies Lily had painstakingly set out on the coffee table. 

“Why did we let her leave out so many cookies?” Brooke groans, taking a large bite of one. 

“Tell me about it,” Vanessa mutters. “Next year, I’m telling her Santa wants potato chips.”

They check on Lily one last time. Her arms are wrapped securely around her stuffed elephant, her face calm and peaceful and a reminder of all that Brooke has been given, all she’s grateful for, every dream she never knew she had come true. Vanessa takes her hand, another dream, and they have a few blissful hours of sleep before Lily comes running in at the crack of dawn, somehow hitting Brooke’s hip with one foot and Vanessa’s arm with the other simultaneously. 

She and Vanessa trade smiles as Lily pulls them into the living room, shouting and clapping and shredding wrapper paper as the sun rises.

Lily opens the ballerina music box Brooke picked out, and Brooke has to blink away tears when she thinks of the blonde little girl she once was, assuming Vanessa feels the same when Lily squeezes Rosie into a hug. 

Brooke knows it’s okay for her to be sad about what she lost and still be happy with what she has. _Sometimes you feel a lot of different things at once_ , Nina had said in one of their first sessions, when Brooke was struggling to process her feelings, and it seems so simple now, but had been so hard to grasp then. She can still be grateful for her present and future while acknowledging the horrors of the past, and she watches Lily smile and sees her big blue eyes shine and Brooke fills with love and hope, holding Vanessa to share it with her. 

The others show up at 9 for breakfast, still in their pajamas, sitting on the rug as Lily shows them all her presents, she and Vanessa sitting back on the couch and taking it all in. 

“It says turn it _clockwise_ , girl! _Clockwise!_ Ain’t you ever seen a clock?” Silky yells as she and A’keria work on assembling Lily’s toy kitchen set. 

“Yvie, if you hit me with that soccer ball one more time--” the rest of Scarlet’s words are cut off as A’keria tells Silky to do the kitchen her dang self, gulping a cup of chocolate milk like it’s hard liquor. 

Vanessa nestles closer to Brooke on the couch, resting her head on her chest. Brooke breathes in Vanessa’s coconut shampoo, breathes in the family around her, all the shouts and laughs and love, and thinks that the world has never seemed as bright, the colors as dazzling, as they do on this morning. 

She thinks of how fearfully loud and harsh everything was when the drug cloud eased off her, before Nina and proper medication helped her be healthy. Brooke used to think she deserved to suffer, deserved to have loud noises scare her and flashbacks haunt her because of what she had done. She knows that’s wrong now. A bad thing happened to her, a bad thing she didn’t deserve to have happen, and it wasn’t her fault. And she doesn’t deserve to suffer. She deserves the love around her, and she’s going to soak it up as much as she can. 

Brooke tilts her head down, looking into the eyes of the woman that started as her enemy years ago and became the person she loves more than anyone, the person that quiets all her fears, the person that makes everything okay.

“This is the best Christmas ever!” Lily exclaims. 

Brooke drops her lips down to Vanessa’s, fire and ice meeting in passionate agreement.


End file.
